That's only if you shell out for the whole year up front. If you pay monthly it's $35 per month. But i believe even the cheapest plan has unlimited upload and bandwidth.

That said, i love smugmug. In the last two years i've gotten a nice camera and gotten into landscape photography. I'm hoping in the next couple months i can get a pollished website up and start to sell prints. (I have a couple 24" x 36" prints hanging in my office at work and they're flippin gorgeous.) Very pleased with smugmug so far on all levels.

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I went to smugmug and tried it. Looks fast and easy enough, butI don't see how I can post pictures to my cj on simtropolis. Im not very good at those things ; where's is the place where you find an URL you can copy and paste ?

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I went to smugmug and tried it. Looks fast and easy enough, butI don't see how I can post pictures to my cj on simtropolis. Im not very good at those things ; where's is the place where you find an URL you can copy and paste ?

I believe right-click protection is turned on by default. So if you open up the gallery your pic is in, click the picture so it takes up the full screen (like a slideshow type view). On the bottom theres a little share button. It looks like a box with an arrow coming out of it. Click that and you get the base URL for the individual photo you can copy and then paste into the simtropolis UI. It has tools for the base URL, HTML link, or BBCode link, as well as letting you limit the resolution shared so you can preserve bandwidth (or discourage image theft.

edit: i just did a little testing. linking my smugmug hosted photo was easy and working with both the base URL and the BBCode link. But when you click the photo it follows the link back to your smugmug site, so you might want to check your site permissions and be careful about what else you host there if you go with that route. I would share one of my landscape pics but my website isn't complete and im not ready for shameless self-promotion.

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So I've now downloaded all the 3 882 files (spread over 15 albums, thank god Photobucket allows full album download).

I was trying to use dropbox for external hosting via THIS method for fizing my old threads in the forums. However, when trying to use the "insert image from URL" method, the dialog box simply refuses to accept the link https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/

Is there a way to overide this box and allow for html edit? Or to patch this dialog into accepting dropbox links?

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That is dated 2013-11-03 which is prior to Dropbox changing their rules to disallow 3rd party linking a few months ago.

This part is more techy than I can answer, but I suspect Dropbox's policy change prolly has some rules that say you can't do that unless you pay them money.

Hahah you're right! The fact that there were comments dated "3 days ago" and "one month ago" misled me!
Back to the drawing board then (I really am trying to avoid putting bandwidth strain on CB and on ST)!

Back to the drawing board then (I really am trying to avoid putting bandwidth strain on CB and on ST)!

There have been a few other sites suggested in this thread. Imgur getting the most praise. (For myself, I won't trust any other free picture hosting site again as it's obvious to me they are each going to get overwhelmed and have to fold up too. Thankfully CB (our admin here, not catty's site tho she did offer) rescued me and suggested I could host all my ST pics right here.)

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There have been a few other sites suggested in this thread. Imgur getting the most praise. (For myself, I won't trust any other free picture hosting site again as it's obvious to me they are each going to get overwhelmed and have to fold up too. Thankfully CB (our admin here, not catty's site tho she did offer) rescued me and suggested I could host all my ST pics right here.)

That's also the reason I haven't mentioned them. I don't want to host my pictures on those companies. I'm guessing, since photobucket and imageshack have changed their business model, others will follow suit soon.

Since I don't really post too much, I rather have links on my pages (and yes, boring text as in the old days) then to have to rehost everything again in a couple of mounts time.

But I think Corina, if you just stick to the important stuff like your shoppes and tutorials, you'd find this task is about a days work. But yeah, going full-on updating everything is not a task I think anyone sane would consider.

With CB's help I got my shoppes and tutorials updated first. Then as I looked thru some of my content I realized most of my posted pics were replies to some question or other and served to illustrate my answer (or illustrate a text only answer by another member) and so I've spent every moment of my free time updating them all. I guess that shows I'm not sane.

Anyhow, I believe everything I've posted publicly here on ST is now fixed. I didn't update any Private Message pics, but if someone lets me know in said messages, I can patch them up too. And if anyone finds a public pic I missed, let me know about that as well.

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OK, I've tried Smugmug (and read their terms of use from beginning to end. Well, almost, as I don't intend to commercialize any of my SC4 pictures...:-) I am tempted (although the "unlimited storage online" made me go "uh ?). I just want to be sure the basic plan (3.99 a month I can manage, even in US $) includes third party hosting. The option is in none of the plans. Does it mean that it's standard, default, for all plans ?

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OK, I've tried Smugmug (and read their terms of use from beginning to end. Well, almost, as I don't intend to commercialize any of my SC4 pictures...:-) I am tempted (although the "unlimited storage online" made me go "uh ?). I just want to be sure the basic plan (3.99 a month I can manage, even in US $) includes third party hosting. The option is in none of the plans. Does it mean that it's standard, default, for all plans ?

All four plans have the option to "Embed photos and videos on other websites" see comparison at the bottom of this webpage

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(a) : is it my aging sight or are pictures a bit fuzzier (either the very large or the large size) ? I think I read somewhere in this thread that smugmug compresses images more, or something of the kind. What does it mean for the quality of images ? Should I upload pngs instead of jpgs ? [see first images of Middletown Commerce & Industry]

(b) could someone remind me of how to get the "click to enlarge" function ?

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Part of the issue is that these sites are commercial, and the endeavors of us and the people like us are inherently non-commercial. With regards to "monetizing" these sites, such a program doesn't mix with what we nor many other users want out of an image hosting service (or probably much of what we do online in general). Imagine if our very own Dirktatorship tried to monetize Simtropolis - it simply wouldn't work nearly as well as it does today1. Many of the moves of these "businesses" make sense in the context of commercial image hosting, but it leaves us not-for-profit hobbyists out in the cold. Personally I doubt if all of the users who image-host along the lines of the average Simtropolis user put together are costing them that much, but what do I know?

1Now, Simtropolis does have to cover its costs from donations and the like but monetization is quite different from this. There are multitudes of human endeavors that do not need to be commercial in order to provide value. Indeed, most such endeavors actually provide less value to people's lives if made commercial.

Seeing as the prevailing ethos of the image-hosting industry and our community don't seem to mix very well, I agree with those who have said over the years that the optimum solution would be for us to have our own image-hosting service. Short of that the best option would be for each of us to host images from our own websites - from what I've heard getting a personal website isn't too hard, so in light of how many times we've been burned I think more of us should consider this choice.

On 6/30/2017 at 5:20 AM, catty-cb said:

If you want to have a temporary on-line location for your pictures and so your guides, etc continue to look ok, while you look around and decide just what you want to do, you are welcome to set a picture album here

Although I won't take advantage of your offer, I'd like to thank you for your generosity.

On 6/30/2017 at 5:30 AM, Cyclone Boom said:

This is completely deplorable. Corporate greed at its finest. If you or anyone else would like a special quota of storage here at Simtropolis, please let me know and this can be arranged. That way as long as ST is around, so will the images.

Ditto - thank you for your generosity in this matter.

On 6/30/2017 at 4:08 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

The way I see this, greed is a by-product of the motivation. Since for greed to flourish, it needs a desire. The purpose of this change in policy is surely driven by the sole, selfish and steadfast desire to make an extra buck. Not at all considering the global implications for communities such as ours. This move is clear proof that sadly, they couldn't care less about the wonderful work Corina and others do to help others with guides, tutorials and journals. It's not personal, but it affects everyone equally who has depended on their services.

While any business requires cash to survive and prosper, there are absolutely much better ways of generating a profit than thoughtlessly pulling the rug from under everyone's feet. For me, it's greed because of the methodology -- what they're doing to obtain it. They know all too well everyone won't fall for their nasty trap, yet will still take such extreme measures regardless. Putting aside people's views and feelings in a desperate attempt to boost their wallets.

Let's say they do make enough profit from this foul scheme. No business strives to fail, and that must be the objective after all. So all's well and good, apart from the small fact of ensuring absolute chaos for sites relying on the images for content. We're the ones paying the price here, without spending a penny.

What they've done is intentionally hold people to ransom. No prior notice given before rendering millions of images unusable for their intended usage. Want your images back? Sure, then pay the fine. But who will seriously go from spending absolutely nothing, to suddenly requiring a subscription with an exorbitant fee?

It's absolutely ludicrous.

Indeed. If the growth of third-party hotlinking was going to cause them problems in the future the least they could do was grandfather in the hotlinks that already existed, if they saw such a problem coming at any point in time for their outfit. At the very least they could have given us advance notice so that small-time users like us wouldn't have their work disrupted.

Trust, goodwill, and respect for the artistic integrity of the individual user are all essential to cultivating a loyal userbase for your service willing to promote it to others and pay for your offerings. By throwing all that in the garbage can and additionally daring to use hostage-taking tactics against us they have also thrown away the chance that I will have any more dealings with them whatsoever as long as I live.

On 6/30/2017 at 5:52 PM, CorinaMarie said:

They could've handled this much better. Like give 6 months notice and then say us little peeps would have to start paying $9.95 per year and I'll bet a bunch would do so if they explained how otherwise the whole business would fold up. For power users, sure charge them a bit more. Make tier based on the bandwidth usage. The problem is some accountant (who's body resembles a Mobius strip due to the location of their head) has multiplied $400 times 100 million users and liked the result that shows. The complete lack of wisdom to know that won't actually happen and will likely bankrupt the company is beyond their comprehension.

If that's what happened there's an excellent chance I would have taken up such an offer - at least I would have seriously considered it. And these bureaucrats and accountants et alia need to be thrown to the wolves.

EDIT: That's quite funny considering that I'm a "Clerk of Red Tape" according to Simtropolis .

On 7/1/2017 at 4:55 AM, Fantozzi said:

The contract you sign says: [...]

Yes, they have the right to change their terms at any time - I, one of their customers, also reserve the right to give them exactly what they deserve when they act like douchebags to me. They have the right but not the duty to treat me with courtesy and respect, and I have the right but not the duty to treat them with courtesy and respect. If they act like dogs I retain the right to call them out on it. That's how at-will and similar arrangements work - it is symmetric, not one-sided.

In other words, just because you can doesn't mean you should, and if people reserve the right to call them out on treating them like dirt they should exercise that right.

(a) : is it my aging sight or are pictures a bit fuzzier (either the very large or the large size) ? I think I read somewhere in this thread that smugmug compresses images more, or something of the kind. What does it mean for the quality of images ? Should I upload pngs instead of jpgs ? [see first images of Middletown Commerce & Industry]

(b) could someone remind me of how to get the "click to enlarge" function ?

59 minutes ago, huzman said:

Aren't we getting off the subject in hand?

49 minutes ago, tariely said:

(Sorry. I thought we were discussing the merits and modalities of various image hosting sites) Can you tell me where should I post this ?

As the topic creator (and as a moderator) I don't mind it this gets discussed since it's somewhat related to how peeps resolve the issue created by the PhotoBorkit catastrophe.

(Sorry. I thought we were discussing the merits and modalities of various image hosting sites) Can you tell me where should I post this ?

If you'd like, I can move your posts about SmugMug over to a new topic.

But otherwise you're quite right -- it is still related to image hosts, and I'm sure @CorinaMarie won't mind.

EDIT: As confirmed above.

2 hours ago, tariely said:

(a) : is it my aging sight or are pictures a bit fuzzier (either the very large or the large size) ? I think I read somewhere in this thread that smugmug compresses images more, or something of the kind. What does it mean for the quality of images ? Should I upload pngs instead of jpgs ? [see first images of Middletown Commerce & Industry]

That's very possible. I've heard some image hosts do compress images to conserve bandwidth by reducing file sizes. This is likely to be more noticeable on JPGs, since it's a lossy format. The higher the compression, the more blurry or degraded the overall quality becomes.

Usually I'd advise against sharing PNGs, since they're prone to be larger in size. Most notably for images with lots of detail (e.g. landscapes), where the difference can be in megabytes. The reason being, PNG images use lossless compression, which means the file size is reduced without losing quality. But this comes at a cost, since it's harder to compress images without discarding data. A useful purpose of them is for smaller web images, where visuals must be crisp & clear, without the file size getting out of hand.

It might be worth checking your account settings at SmugMug, as they may allow the level of compression to be adjusted. Otherwise it wouldn't hurt to test a PNG upload and try a comparison in terms of quality vs. file size. If the advantages are great enough, that might be the best solution. At least for images you'd like to stand out or feel would most benefit from the increased clarity.

2 hours ago, tariely said:

(b) could someone remind me of how to get the "click to enlarge" function ?

I believe that shows on attachments uploaded here to ST, or automatically if an image overflows the boundaries of a page.

For images posted from external sites, this won't show if the image fits without being scaled (resized).

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Just in case someone would want these for a CJ or whatever, I've extracted the .BMP image files from the .IXF files using the BMPext32 program. It only works on plain 3000 and not unlimited. Here's samples:

I had to use the .7z compression to make it fit as an attachment.
GameBMPs.7z

This is one of the extra real city terrains @catty-cb has maintained on her site and now has kindly passed over to us here at Simtropolis for hosting. Inside the zip is the Twin_Cities--MN.sct file. Place it in your C:\GOG Games\SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Cities\Terrains folder. When starting the game select the Real City Terrain option and then chose it from the selection menu.
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You will notice this file is not my creation and credit for keeping it alive goes to catty. This STEX entry will stay under my name tho since I'm in charge of the new SimCity 3000 Sub-Forum and I'll be the one to reply to comments or questions.

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Simtropolis relies mainly on member donations to continue operating. Without your support, we just would not be able to be entering our 15th year online! You've really help make this a great community.

But we still need your support to stay online. If you're able to, please consider a donation to help us stay up and running, so that we can help keep bringing SimCity players together to share our creations.

Expand your city with the best from the Simtropolis Echange.Make a donation and get one or all three discs today!

By way of a "Thank You" gift, we'd like to send you our STEX Collector's DVD. It's some of the best buildings, lots, maps and mods collected for you over the years. Check out the STEX Collections for more info.